1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to flight and journey logs for aircraft, and more particularly, to the utilization of forward displays and integrated avionics data capture as a means to automate and streamline the logging process.
2. Description of the Related Art
Modern business aircraft have become increasingly complex, from a system, electronics and data perspective. Specifically, aircraft systems now rely on digitized data for typical operational requirements like enroute navigation data, terminal area navigation data, maintenance status and health of aircraft systems, etc. This data which, in the past, existed as paper documents, now resides on the aircraft electronics systems in a digitized format. Furthermore, modern aircraft systems are increasingly becoming connected and integrated in the aircraft as components of the overall aircraft network thus allowing internal communication between diverse aircraft systems. This has led to the potential for improved aircraft data management.
The Flight & Journey Logs are common artifacts that are required for recording of flight operations on business and regional aircraft. In today's operations, the Oceanic Journey Log is recorded manually by the pilot, typically on the actual printed oceanic flight plan. After the completion of the trip, this document is required to be stored in the pilot's training records, for at least six months after the actual trip. The log is required to be presented to the regulator in case of suspected Gross Navigational Error (GNE) or an International Flight Operations Audit. Frequently, because of their manual nature, these logs are lost or are illegible due to poor handwriting or turbulence.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,868,320, entitled “Methods, Devices, and Systems for Automatic Flight Logs,” discloses some systems, devices and methods for automatic flight logs. One method includes receiving one or more location data points associated with a flight, automatically recording the one or more location data points in a flight log, and allowing access through a display user-interface to view and operate on the flight log. Receiving the one or more location data points includes obtaining the location data points from a global positioning system (GPS).
U.S. Pat. Publcn. No. 20020103865, entitled “Logbook Database System,” discloses a method and system for recording the actions and activities (as for a logbook) of a person, persons, machines, or other animate or inanimate objects using portable or stationary devices. These devices are (1) directly connected, or wired, or (2) are connected wirelessly to a local (LAN) or wide area network (WAN). The actions or activity are either immediately transmitted to the local or wide area network and received and recorded on a server system, or recorded and held in the wired/wireless device and then transmitted to the server system at a later date. Once recorded on the server system, the actions and activities are accessible to wired or wireless devices via local or wide area networks or available to other server systems. They can be reviewed and acknowledged by an authoritative entity through the use of an electronic signature facility.